Lenovo’s ThinkPad Stack is modular gear for road warriors

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Laptop bags can get pretty messy when you’re loading them up for a lengthy trip. Lenovo’s new ThinkPad Stack offers a slick, modular way to keep things neat and tidy.

The ThinkPad Stack line-up consists of four different mobile accessories. There’s a 10,000mAh power bank, a 1TB USB 3.0 hard drive, a travel router (with support for USB data sticks), and a Bluetooth speaker. Nothing very unique so far, but it’s not the pieces themselves that make the ThinkPad Stack interesting. It’s the way they work together that sets them apart.

Each piece has a set of pogo pins and magnets that allow them to lock on to other pieces; they also allow both power and data to pass through. ThinkPad Stack accessories are all roughly the same size as an external 2.5-inch hard drive (the speaker is slightly thicker than the rest), so even a block of four won’t occupy very much space in your bag — though it will add roughly two pounds.

You can’t buy the ThinkPad Stack just yet; they’re set to go on sale in April, and they won’t come cheap. The power bank is the least expensive piece at $49. Comparable name-brand units sell for about half that. The Bluetooth speaker is priced at $89, while the router and 1TB hard drive go for $199 each.

You can do much better there, too — D-Link’s AC750 Travel Router sells for about half that much and Seagate’s 1TB Wi-Fi HDDs are about $60 cheaper. You’re paying a decent premium for the ThinkPad pedigree and Stack modularity.